India could become the engine room for the IoT-enabled world

This year at Mobile World Congress we saw less talk on mobility and more on how the Internet of Things (IoT) will be mobile-enabled and transformational

Mohammad Chowdhury
Updated: Mar 11, 2015 09:00:44 AM UTC
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In their offices in London this week the GSMA confirmed to me that this year’s Mobile World Congress (MWC) was the biggest ever, attracting around 90,000 visitors to the 4-day global extravaganza for the mobile communications industry held in Barcelona from 2 to 5 March. For the second year running we were treated to a keynote address by Mark Zuckerberg, underlining the importance of the relationship between social media, apps providers and mobile telecoms. Zuckerberg didn’t quite have the cache of 2014 when Facebook had announced the acquisition of WhatsApp just before MWC.

This year, once again, we saw less talk on mobility and more on how the Internet of Things (IoT) will be mobile-enabled and transformational, confirming how the mobile industry has entered a new phase of evolution where it will be closely intertwined with many other industries.

Every stand at MWC had an IoT or Digital theme. The GSMA’s “Connected City” included several connected cars, a virtual reality connected home and a 5G super-fast connectivity zone hosted by Korea Telecom. I loved the Fiat 500 [picture above] fitted with an Alcatel Lucent powered communications system which allows a caller to share their location details directly onto the car’s navigation screen, making it super easy to pinpoint where people are when you are trying to meet or collect them. AT&T Mobility had a broad display of the latest connected gadgets including a virtual reality view of the connected home. Not only does the gadgetry on show allow people to experience the technology now being made available, but they importantly provide an opportunity to the corporate to showcase how strategy and business development is being shaped on the ground.

I was less impressed by the “connected toothbrush”, which at US$ 300 doesn’t seem to offer much by way of connected functionality: the brush has a mobile-enabled sensor that sends a signal to your mobile phone if you are pressing too hard on your teeth while you brush. Otherwise, the phone screen will show a diagram of a mouth showing each quadrant, encouraging you to brush the recommended 30 seconds in each (but since the diagram is generic and static, it is not sensing how long you actually brush). But like many products on show, the toothbrush is an experimental product that will no doubt evolve.  Two elements would make the toothbrush more compelling to me: 1. An in-built camera which shows images of your teeth where you are brushing, enabling you to see what you rarely do – which is where to focus the brushing more to be effective; and
2. A purchasing model whereby the brush is not retailed directly to the customer, but somehow paid for through the dental insurer such that the insurer subsidises the brush in order to use it as a tool to reduce its outgoings on treatment. Such a model could be a win-win for toothbrush manufacturer, dental insurer, and most importantly, result in healthier teeth for users.

If the brush had the camera, I’d be prepared to pay US$ 100 for it, with a co-pay of US$ 200 from my dental insurer, agreeing to them being able to monitor whether I am using it or not.

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And so the Congress boldly revealed early stabs into monetisation, and many prototype ideas which need more development. The most monetisable ideas remain in the domain of transportation, where there were countless vehicles showing digital connectivity that drives lower insurance premiums, better safety or more convenience, all features which somebody will pay for.

In the near term, emerging markets such as India could benefit in three ways from the IoT-enabled world:

1. At the bottom end, India and other developing countries could benefit from leap-frogging more services to be provided without the need to build more and more physical infrastructure
2. India could become the engine room of the IoT-enabled world, a centre where digitally-enabled services the world over are supported through analytics and storage
3. India’s cities could become more manageable, safer and more efficiently run as they benefit from traffic management, energy consumption reduction (such as smart street lights that dim when there is no traffic), road death reduction and better efficiency in using water.

The Digital India story must be brought to life with a clearer vision around what the IoT-enabled world can do for India, and what India can do to enable IoT across the world.

The thoughts and opinions shared here are of the author.

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